Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome back to the episodes.

Apologies for missing a week there because my throat went absolutely nuts and I couldn't speak properly and was hacking and coughing, and I'm sure you didn't want to listen to that in a podcast, so that's why I took a week's break to let my throat get over.

As you can see or hear, I should say, you can tell I'm still a little bit croaky but pretty well functional.

So today's episode I want to talk to you about something that affects a lot of people, especially people who are single and especially when they're out, trying to approach someone that they like the look of so that they can have a conversation and connect with that person and see if maybe you're a fit to be in a relationship.

So this thing is this lovely little result that we call rejection. Now rejection is when you walk up to someone and they state that they don't want to talk to you. You have this feeling of being rejected and all these feelings of not being enough and your self worth comes into play and you start to feel bad about yourself and you start to beat yourself up and it can be quite traumatising.

There's a few things I want to point out to you, both from the perspective of the person walking up and also from the perspective of the person being approached, because when you understand it a little better, it still hurts, but it doesn't hurt as long or as intensely, and you can actually use what happened in the interaction to be able to reduce the chances of your being rejected the next time.

So I had to figure all of this out myself. A lot of it I learned and read bits and pieces, and then I put it all together when I created my "Dating Template", which I used to go out and find my wife. Now I'm naturally one of these people that is very shy, very reserved, I struggle to approach people. It took me a while to get started, which is always the hardest part of approaching because I was very much riddled with these fears.

So I'm very familiar, very comfortable with them because they're an old friend from a long time ago anyway, when you're walking up to someone, you obviously have all these fears of rejection, fears of embarrassment, all of these fears that hold you back from walking up to someone. Now this is natural because it's an unknown situation. You don't know what the outcome is going to be now. Obviously, they're not going to go completely nutso and attack you. You don't know that. Well, you know it's not going to happen because we're a relatively modern society. You know, that possibility is very small, like ridiculously small. However, we still have these fears that are hardwired into us from generations and generations. So when we approach, we have these naturally.

Now the reason that people reject us so quickly, flipping over to the other side of the coin, to the person being approached. There's a few different aspects of them and their situation you need to consider, and to bear in mind that will help minimise the rejection part. First of all, you don't know what sort of day they've had. Now they could have just been fired from their job. They could be dealing with the death of a friend or a family member. They could have just been dumped by their partner. They could be with people they haven't seen for a really long time, and they're just trying to catch up. So time is precious. You don't know what their situation is.

Now they have two choices. They can either reject you the way that people usually do, which is "I don't want to talk to you", which is a little harsh. Or they could be a little more civilised, which is a little more unlikely but would obviously yield better results because then they could explain to you. "Look, now is not a good time. I normally would, but not tonight. Sorry", but that usually doesn't happen, unfortunately.

So we're dealing with, they just put their hand up and go. "No thanks". Now, also, you don't know what their history is of being approached. You don't know if they're regularly approached by aggressive people or people who say things inappropriate or whether they're heavily inebriated people. So you don't know who normally comes up to talk to them, so they could have a triggered response because of this history. So you need to bear that in mind, okay?

Also they could be just someone who is uncomfortable being approached in certain situations. So you have all of these responses that they would have that you know nothing about. But when they "reject" us in inverted commas by putting their hand up, well, whatever they do to indicate they don't want to talk to you, we take it personally and that's normal. However, it's a little bit crazy because it's based on no information whatsoever. We don't know any of that information I just said.

Okay, so if you bear that in mind and maybe even have a little bit of a dialogue, you know, for example, just off the top of my head, you might say something like, "That's a shame, because you look like someone who would be fun to talk to. However, obviously, now is not a good time. Have a good evening or day or whatever it is" and then walk away.

So then then that lets them know that you were a decent person, so maybe in a little while, they'll think "actually they did seem OK" and they might come up and talk to you. Now chances again not huge, but you handle it well. It shows that you have a certain quality. Now from their point of view, also, how can they reject you? Because they don't know who you are. Okay, But again, we take it personally.

Okay? So for myself, when I was out there, it took a little while to get started. But once I was started, I was having fun, and I realised, how could they reject someone of such high quality? So if they didn't want to talk to me, which did happen twice in over 170 women, then they were losing out on me. So that made it a little bit easier. Now let's look into why we get rejected. Now I'm going to look at this predominantly from the male point of view of being rejected, because it's usually the male that approaches the woman. However, there are women that approach men, and also you get rejected. So it goes both ways.

You know, no one is immune from this, unfortunately, so first of all, you need to bear in mind their scenario. You don't know what that is, So try to bear that in mind. So you don't take it so personally. Okay? But also taking that into mind. How can you minimise it? First of all, the thing you need to do is you need to have confident body language because people look at someone and they make a judgement within seconds. So if you can remove some of those judgments or alter those judgments for the better, your chances of being accepted are so much greater.

So first of all, you need to have good body language. Now that body language you're looking for is confident. Now our most vulnerable body parts are our throat and our chest. So someone who is unconfident would walk with their head bowed down to protect their throat and their shoulders pulled forward to protect their chest. And they might even have their arms crossed or in their pockets or something like that. So someone who approaches like that looks very unconfident and therefore could be threatening. But if you look confident, so you put your head up exposing your throat, you put your shoulders back a little bit, which puts your chest out and shows that you're confident you have your hands by your side and your palms visible so they can see you're not carrying something. Therefore, subconsciously, they can see that you're not a threat. You're not dangerous, and this is particularly true with women because obviously men are stronger physically, so we can hurt them or they have to be more alert to these things.

 So it's not a personal thing. It's a self preservation thing, and that's important. So you're walking up with good body language, all right. It's confidence. They can see you're safe. You also want to have a good energy, so when you're walking up, you want to be, if you're watching them, you'll see from their body language how energetic they are. So if they're using small movements, they will tend to have a lower energy. If they're using bigger movements, they will tend to be a higher energy. You can also tell by the volume of their voice things like that. So if you come in at around the same level or maybe a little bit higher, you're more likely to be accepted because you're already like them.

So if I walk up to a group of women, they're about a reasonable energy level and I walk up and I'll go "Hi ladies, how  you going?" (said with a low energy), they're just going to say who is this guy? And they're not going to want to talk to me. Conversely, if they're about an average energy and I come in and I'm all "Hey, ladies, how are you going?" (said with a very high energy) They're just going to go. This guy is an idiot, So you need to have an energy about the same as them.

Okay, You also want to let them know that you're fun, You're enjoyable to be around. You're worth having a conversation with, or an interaction with of some sort. So again, that's your energy. You know, you want to show that you're friendly and also and this is a really good one. The body language and the energy level. I almost forgot. Remember to smile. Studies have shown that smiling automatically improves your attractiveness, so go in and smile as you approach, and it's got to be a proper smile. If you smile, your eyes have to be involved. If you're just smiling with your mouth, it's actually a grimace. And that's not a good look. You want to be smiling with your eyes, so going in with those three will greatly decrease your chances of being rejected just using those three.

Now that will get you past the initial rejection. You also want to make sure that you engage them in a conversation that is different to what they have used to before and shows that you're again, someone who's different and a higher value than other people. So if you come in with usual, "what's your name?" "What do you do?" conversation, you're going to bore people really quickly. If you come in with something that's a little bit interesting, and that could be anything. I mean, I've got documents that I give to my clients that are full of questions, like nearly 700 questions. So you go through and just pick out a few that you can use to start a conversation.

A question that I've used for many years is "If I could wave a magic wand and give you any skill, ability, class of qualification that you needed to do any job on the planet and money wasn't important, so you could do a volunteering job, what job would you choose to do?" Amazingly, that has started off some really cool conversations because people invariably answer with something that's completely different to what they do. So I've had some really good conversations with people over the years on that one. So you could lead with something like that.

You could lead with "If you went to bed tonight, laid your head down and it was a magical pillow, and you could wake up anywhere in the morning anywhere in the world. Where would you wake up?" Again, you can start a conversation that is a little bit more interesting,  then you can take that in the direction of holidays, best holidays and dream holidays and why, and all this sort of thing.

So suddenly you've got a conversation that's not like anything they've ever had before. It's where the person who's actually interesting and they think, "Wow, this person is fun. They're interesting. They're not like everyone else", and you're far more likely to be accepted.

So those four things, your body language, your energy level, your smile and you're what I call non-vanilla questions will greatly minimise your chances of being rejected. Now, a little quick tip I was just talking about this two days ago at a one day workshop is when you approach someone, How you handle that response and how to handle that response can actually have an impact on what happens next. So be aware. You want to be elegant, you want to be respectful. You want to be mature, so you walk up and they reject you. If you carry on and make a scene out of it, the next person you may have approached could have seen that interaction. You walk up and guess what? They're rejecting you because they don't want to risk going through that. So if you when they reject, you say, "Okay, it's a shame. You look like you were fun. I would have enjoyed your company. Either way, have a good evening" and you walk on. You're seen by the next person, as someone who is in control of themselves and is mature, and you'll have a greater chance of approaching them, and conversely, that person if they reject you and they do it really nastily and the person who was going to walk up to them sees that, there's no way they're going to risk walking up and having that sort of reaction.

In both of those instances, you could have missed out on the person who might have been right for you to have a fantastic relationship. So be aware that when you are being rejected or rejecting, it has a massive impact. So learn to control it and be mature and respectful and elegant, and you'll feel better about yourself because you are in control of yourself. Anyway, that's some things about rejection and dealing with it.

If you've got any questions, any feedback, feel free to send it through by clicking the link. You can send me a little voice message, ninety second voice message because I like getting them, actually hearing people's voices, and then I'm talking to real people, even though in emails from a real person it's nice getting that verbal feedback.

Also, there's an opportunity to check out the family and also feel free to distribute this podcast to people that you care about so they can also get results.

Anyway, that's it for today. I'm glad to be back on board. Look after yourself. Keep up the good work and remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.